


Healing What's Left

by knowyourincantations



Series: Sapphic September 2019 [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, F/F, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Mistreatment of Teenagers by Justice System, Post-Hogwarts, Release from Azkaban and associated trauma, Sapphic September, Sapphic September 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 15:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20584712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knowyourincantations/pseuds/knowyourincantations
Summary: Pansy was swept up by the Aurors following the Battle of Hogwarts. Two months later, they’re finally releasing her, and Daphne is there waiting.





	Healing What's Left

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sapphic September 2019 Day 7: 'Cold'

Daphne was ready to storm Azkaban by the time they finally let Pansy go. When she heard, woken by the owl tapping at the window, passed out at her desk again after working late researching legal precedents, she rushed to the Ministry in yesterday’s clothes.

It was thoroughly undignified. Her hair was a rat’s nest. Her breath was probably sour. Her clothes were rumpled and she probably smelled like she hadn’t showered in a couple of days. If she stopped and thought too hard about it, she’d probably find she _hadn’t_ showered in a couple of days.

But none of that mattered.

The Aurors had rounded Pansy up with the Death Eaters at Hogwarts solely because some little twit had told them she tried to give Harry over. There was no evidence she was involved with the Death Eaters, Daphne knew that better than anyone, and yet, they hadn’t let her go. They’d kept responding to her enquiries with ‘an investigation is pending’ and ignored her requests to visit Pansy.

It was beyond disgraceful.

The justice system may have been overworked and run down trying to get the Death Eater trials over with as soon as possible so everyone could move on, but that was no excuse to leave a seventeen year old girl in Azkaban. They still had a handful of Dementors there. It was utterly unacceptable, and Daphne would make sure they suffered for it one day.

But not right now.

All that mattered now was collecting Pansy when they released her from a trial Daphne hadn’t even been informed was happening until it was over.

Merlin knows her parents wouldn’t have been there. Once she tracked them down she’d give them a piece of her mind too.

When she walked into the Ministry Atrium, the guards moved towards her like they thought she was going to cause trouble again. Before she could even begin to vent her frustration on them, a harassed looking wizard came scurrying out of nowhere.

“Miss Greengrass?” he asked, ducking around the guards.

She didn’t know how he recognised her when she’d never seen him before, but she wouldn’t put it past the guards to have passed around a picture of her. She had certainly been harassing the Department of Law Enforcement enough to warrant it.

“Where is she?” she asked without preamble.

“If you’ll just submit your wand for registering, I’ll take you to her,” he said, gesturing over to the security desk near the doors leading to the rest of the Ministry.

Daphne grit her teeth. The last time they’d welcomed her in they’d put her in a room and ignored her for several hours instead of listening to her valid complaints about not only Pansy’s treatment but many other innocent Slytherin students who had been rounded up as well.

Pansy was her main focus, but she was still fighting for the rest of them too. Most of them had been let out already, none of them had publicly acted out against Harry Potter the way she had, after all. She’d work on getting the rest of them out after she had Pansy somewhere safe.

“I’d rather you brought her out to me, if it’s all the same,” she said in a tight voice.

Even with all the anger bubbling below the surface, she was so close to getting Pansy out that she wasn’t about to start something by being aggressive. They could easily draw out the process for hours if they wanted to, maybe even days.

The wizard’s expression became more harried. “We have a private Floo connection available for your use, to avoid the crowds.”

Daphne pointedly looked around the deserted Atrium. “Yes, how uncomfortable this crowd will be for us.”

“I’m not authorised to bring her out here,” he said, gesturing towards the security desk again. “It’s for the best if these things are handled privately.”

So there’s less photographic evidence of their mistreatment of teenagers, Daphne thought waspishly. She still had bruises on her arms from when a security guard had tried to manhandle her out of the Atrium the last time she was there. The moment someone had pulled out a camera he had let her go and stepped back.

The Ministry’s declarations of tolerance, transparency, and change were such a joke.

But she couldn’t forget what was most important for the moment. Pansy had been in Azkaban for over two months, the sooner she could get her somewhere comfortable the better.

Daphne lifted her chin and walked over to the security desk, all but thrusting her wand at the guard there. He didn’t meet her eye as he registered it and gave her a name tag. He looked reluctant as he handed her back her wand at the harried wizard’s instruction.

With that over with, the doors to the rest of the Ministry opened, and she was ushered down a long corridor to the elevator at the end.

It made her skin itch all over to be inside the Ministry again. At least she got to keep her wand this time, but the second she tried to use it, justified or not, she knew she’d wind up in Azkaban herself, and then she’d be of no help to anyone.

“Just through here,” the wizard said as the elevator stopped on a deserted floor. He gestured across a large room to a wall with four doors.

The sight of empty desks in the room before her sent shivers down Daphne’s spine. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jumper and clutched her wand tightly, even if using it would only cause more problems.

It occurred to her, halfway across the eerily empty room, that he had never given her his name. It put her even more on edge. Without a name she couldn’t file any reports against him if he acted inappropriately.

By the time they reached one of the doors across the room, she was starting to regret agreeing to leave the Atrium.

But then he opened the door and she saw Pansy.

There was a stone-faced Auror standing beside her, and the fireplace already burning behind him. Daphne scanned the room before stepping through the door, but there was no one else inside.

“Pansy?” she asked gently, crossing the room and touching her shoulder.

Beneath her hand, she could feel Pansy trembling, or maybe shivering. She kept her head down, her hair lank and greasy. A strong and unpleasant odour wafted off her, and Daphne had to force down a rush of anger. Had they not even allowed her to bathe before her sham of a trial?

“If you will sign here to state that for the record that you are collecting her,” the Auror said, pointing to a sheet of parchment on a table nearby.

It made her itch again to put her name to anything, nevermind that Pansy had been cleared of all suspicion and charges, so there should be no need to record that she had been collected, but Daphne moved to the table and snatched up the quill lying beside the parchment. As she dipped the nib into the waiting inkpot, she shuddered to discover that the ink was red.

Once done, the first wizard collected the parchment and left the room.

Daphne glanced at the Auror, sizing him up. It set her heart rabbiting away in her chest to be alone in a room with an Auror. She’d made such an enemy of the Ministry in the past two months, she kept expecting to find herself arrested.

“You may use the Floo at your convenience,” the Auror said stiffly, still stone-faced.

Better than the ones who expressed outright hostility towards her, she supposed.

She moved back to Pansy and touched her shoulder again.

“Let’s go home, shall we?” she said softly, taking her hand and leading her over to the fire.

It was most unlike Pansy to be so silent, or to be led anywhere, but after two months in Azkaban, exposed to Dementors and Merlin knows what else, Daphne didn’t think she would have faired any better. The looming presence of an Auror probably didn’t help either.

There was a small pot of Floo powder on the mantle, and Daphne took a pinch and tossed it into the fire. Pansy shook against her as she gathered her up and stepped in. When she spoke out her Floo address, it was past a lump in her throat.

The journey was hard, she had to guide Pansy as well as herself. When arrived at her sitting room, they almost fell over. Daphne managed to keep them upright, but only by gripping Pansy so hard it probably hurt. She felt so frail in her arms and under her hands. She’d lost a shocking amount of weight.

And she was still shivering.

“You’re safe now,” she said, gathering her into a proper embrace and holding her tight. “We’re at my house. My parents and sister are on the continent. It’s just us.”

Pansy was stiff in her arms despite the shivering, but after a few moments, she sagged against her and her breathing hitched on a sob. Another followed, and then another. Daphne closed her eyes against her own tears.

It was hard to hold her through it, and not because of the foul stench emanating from her.

In all the years she’d known her, and the last two years they’d been intimate, she couldn’t remember ever seeing her cry.

“What can I do?” she asked, rubbing Pansy’s back and trying to ignore the prominence of her too-knobbly spine. “What do you need?”

“C-cold. I’m so...so cold,” Pansy stuttered.

Daphne closed her eyes for a moment. The Ministry kept promising to cease the use of Dementors at Azkaban, but two months after their first declaration, they still hadn’t. And yet they held people there pending trial, when their guilt was not even assured.

It was barbaric, and the excuse of the holding cells in the Ministry being overcrowded was inadequate.

“How about a shower?” she asked, forcing those thoughts away. It wouldn’t do to get worked up around Pansy. She took her upper arms gently and pushed her back to look at her.

Pansy kept her head down, and Daphne had to tilt her chin up to finally see her face. The sight turned her stomach. The beautiful architecture of Pansy’s face was now a skeletal caricature. Her cheeks were hollowed and her eyes lost in dark, bruised hollows.

Daphne swallowed against another painful lump in her throat at the evidence of what they’d done to her.

“Let’s warm you up in the shower,” she said, gently looping an arm around Pansy’s shoulder and leading her out of the room.

Still completely unlike herself, Pansy let herself be led. She still shivered and shook, her every step stilted and hesitant. She didn’t protest anything, and she dropped her head down again.

When Daphne undressed her in the bathroom, she didn’t even try to cover herself. The Pansy of two months ago would have tried to hide how thin and bony she’d become. She’d have tried to hide the smell of what was probably a week without bathing, maybe even longer.

There had been rumours of terrible conditions at Azkaban, but no confirmations. Daphne would make sure everyone heard of this. As soon as she could get details out of Pansy, she’d write something up. She’d been accumulating evidence against the Ministry for the whole two months she’d been advocating for the imprisoned Slytherins. She wouldn’t let them get away with this.

If the _Prophet_ wouldn’t publish it, she’d go elsewhere.

While Pansy stood naked and shivering, she quickly undressed herself as well. In her state, she didn’t think Pansy was even capable of washing herself. She’d never seen someone after such prolonged exposure to Dementors before, she didn’t really know what to do. But if she felt cold then warmth should help. And surely getting cleaned up would help as well. She guided Pansy into the shower and let her stand under the warm water for several minutes. Her shaking didn’t stop.

“It’s okay,” she said, pulling her into another embrace. “You’re safe now. It’ll be okay.”

She let the water run over them and closed her eyes.

“Everything will be okay now,” she said, wondering who she was trying to convince the most.

**End.**

**Author's Note:**

> I really wasn't sure how to tag this, I know it's an uncomfortable read, but I had a real hard time thinking of tags 😬
> 
> I really just meant to write about Pansy being cold and Daphne warming her up but then it turned into a commentary on terrible post-war treatment of Slytherins and well...yeah. It happens.
> 
> I know I'm way behind with Sapphic September, but this month is turning out to be a bad health month, so I'm doing my best XD
> 
> If you enjoyed reading this (well...maybe enjoy is not the right word XD) I would really appreciate a comment, or [reblog this post](https://knowyourincantations.tumblr.com/post/187609672758/healing-whats-left-daphnepansy) on tumblr so others might see it too =)


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